To Christian Women Under 40: We’re Sorry

It’s time for women of faith to make amends.

 for Her.menuetics

I’ve watched one young woman after another pour out her heart, expressing deep emotion about the messages they heard from other generations:

“You feel un-relatable to me and not transparent.”

“I feel like my mom is under a sworn oath to not tell me everything.”

“I need more answers!  Why keep things from me?”

“Your idea of a godly woman feels threatening to me.”

“When you do talk to me about spiritual things, your language is patronizing.”

“The sense I get from older women is they want to fix in my life what was wrong in theirs.”

This breakthrough came at a recent event called Shaping Her Faith, part of my research on relationships between Christian women. Women aged 22 to 77 talked openly about the messages we send to one another and how they impact our spiritual lives. 

I suddenly knew I was witnessing something sacred. Their young, open voices created a safe haven as we all leaned in, listening to what felt like a mystery finally resolved.

I watched the older generations receive the remarks from women in their 20s and 30s with grace and intentional thought; they each began to ask forgiveness of the younger women. Seasoned women confessed to sometimes not listening, not being relatable, using patronizing spiritual language, and trying to fix their own problems.

Beyond the event, I heard about these women gathering together. One told me, “Pam, I didn’t realize how quickly we could get down to the spiritual issues—they are already there!”

In sociologist Christian Smith’s book, Lost in Transition, Smith and his collaborators investigated the difficulties young people face. The researchers point out that it’s not just their problem but our problem—the struggles of emerging adults have much deeper roots in mainstream American culture. Smith finds that much of our youth’s pain and confusion lies with those who’ve gone before. So my message to Christian women in their 20s and 30s: I’m sorry, too. It’s time to mend our generational wounds and deepen our relationships as women of faith.

Part of the solution, I believe is to stop blaming either generation. Instead I want to call you to follow Smith’s simple advice to help avert the gap: Intentionally stay in relationship with mature adults outside your age group.

In our public conversation, one mature woman admitted she only met with younger women if they contacted her. Even though older friends, relatives, and mentors should initiate, when young women show a desire to sustain and strengthen a relationship, both people benefit. Here’s how you—as women in your 20s and 30s—can help us make amends, to come together for the sake of the church and God’s kingdom:

Give us a chance at authenticity.

Older women recognize that as young Christians, you desire authenticity. Sadly, we need your help in honoring what that means to you. Ask us questions about our past, probe into the durability of our faith, break beneath the surface of our veneer so we don’t stay superficial with you. We long to tell the truth about ourselves. Do you believe God can speak to you through us?  That’s really the nagging question mature women need answered. 

Once when I was speaking at a women’s conference, a woman in her early 20s approached me and said, “I can’t believe how you are just yourself up there.” That simple statement encouraged me, in mid-life with all its surprising insecurities, to keep on doing the only thing I know how to do! See yourself reaching across generational lines as bringing health to our nation. A strong society is dependent upon numerous interpersonal relationships and deep feelings of commitment. 

Don’t worry about doing things differently.

It’s okay to remind us that we’re not just like you. Christian Smith observes how American adults seem more interested in projecting their hopes and ideals for what they think young people today should be like than in actually understanding what they are like.  At times, we look at young women as if you are a “blank screen” onto which we project images of our own desires. 

For example, younger women talk about being less tied to “seasons” of life—they want it all at once. We need to talk openly about this concern without projecting on you the way we lived our “seasons.” There’s nothing biblical about formulaic answers to life.  The wisdom you can receive, however, from women who love Jesus through the years is worth more than gold. 

Reminding us that we’re not like you is a humble way of seeing our relationship as a benefit to society, the church, family, community, and the future. We can learn from each other. Be confident about the differences that are not moral absolutes. Let mature women know how much you love being busy and don’t feel guilty about it.  Create extraordinary change by embracing better relationships with these resourceful women—don’t be afraid to try.

Lead a grace-giving life. 

I was encouraged by the way we ended our conversation that day.  In the end, we all agreed women must give more and more grace to one another. 

By lowering our expectations, letting go of our agendas, and maybe even disappointing someone—we create change by leading a “grace-giving” life.  We’ve forgiven one another across the generations, I believe now it’s time to give grace.  And that’s not just your call or their call but ours.

Vulnerable

 "But encourage one another daily"

 Accessible and Tender

One of the downsides of living in such an image driven society is that as women, we tend to get out of the habit of everyday vulnerability.  We forget that our deepest needs are gifts and we can find ourselves moving through each day less and less vulnerable.

This is not a good way to live.

The poor habits of not living with vulnerability can slowly take over our lives—sometimes we are not even aware.  It manifests itself in subtle ways like the feeling of frustration when the doctor looks carefully at our chart during a visit but ignores why we really came.

It grows in us as we believe the thoughts in our minds and messages from media: “I can do this on my own” and “I only want to give to people, not receive.”

Eventually, this unhealthy habit takes root and suddenly, when crisis mode hits, it becomes explosive and the very relationships we desperately need become sources of stress.

Remembering to be Vulnerable    

    

When we start practicing habits of being vulnerable in the routine of daily life, we can more easily express it in stressful times.

Encouragement and calling are all around us; we just need ears to hear them.  And the way we start hearing words of deep encouragement is by opening a shut door or two of our hearts—even when it feels risky.

That’s not to say people won’t hurt or disappoint because they will.  One definition of vulnerability is, “to wound.” This doesn’t mean we walk around being fragile or needy.  It just means we can be accessible, even tender.  When we’re in the daily habit of being vulnerable we begin to feel less alone, less burdened, and certainly more encouraged in the deeper places.

How we show our needs in the daily of life determines our support in the crises of life.

One reason we practice being vulnerable in the everyday of life is it reminds us of how much we need Jesus.  We learn sweet dependence and break chains of independence that our culture and our reasoning bind us with each day.

Here’s Our Challenge

Today, try practicing vulnerability with other people. 

·      Say what you need.  Say, “I need  ______________.  Be vulnerable for the needs you cannot meet, the ones where someone else’s help would cause you to shake your head and say, “I couldn’t have made it without you.”

·      Say it to God and pay attention to how encouraged you feel in the deeper places when you turn to Him.

·      See if someone is trying to say it to you today.

“See to it, sisters and brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the Living God.  But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today.  So that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

Hebrews 3:12

Hold Me Close . . . Says Jesus

First, I want to give you Understanding.  My love for you is extravagant not cautious. 

I don’t want you spending your time wondering too long over your issues and asking yourself “what should I do?”  When you find yourself waking up morning after morning with the same problem on your mind.  I want you to stop.  I want to give you understanding. 

When you hear yourself repeating the same problems to the same women, and getting nowhere in return, discontinue those conversations.    I am not cautious with you – I am not thinking that I’m going to hold onto my wisdom a little bit longer – I am extravagant with my wisdom.  Cry out for it. As you begin to receive understanding from me, you will notice that you are more understanding with other women who are different than you.  See your relationship with other women, older and younger, as a place where I am training you in your attitudes toward others.  See your relationships as a reflection of the trinity.

Second, I use Affliction or suffering in my leadership with you.  I use it to bring out the best woman in you.  Specific afflictions have been appointed for you and with each one you have a choice to make – you can harden your heart, which leads to bitterness, or you can open your heart deeper to my leadership.  My leading brings eternal fruit.  When suffering comes other women will speak into your life.  Before you listen to another, go back and see what my last word to you was – obey that word.  It was given to you for your protection.  The road will seem long and you will be tempted to think I have forgotten you. Remember that suffering teaches you endurance.  Hold On.  As other girls and women watch you overcome, the next generation is handed the baton of faith.  Hold on.

Third, I have chosen to give you Comfort: My lessons teach you as a woman to go all out in love.  There’s a tenderness given to a woman in the first seconds of each new day as she rolls over, places her thoughts on me and waits.  That’s the comfort I have for you each and every morning.  Receive my comfort letting it ease your physical and emotional pain; weep in my presence and let the tears serve as ministers to your pain; it is then that I can respond with comfort.  My comfort then turns your spirit because it knows it has been heard, seen, released.

Fourth, my words of Compassion stir up your beauty.   A woman who knows my words, knows my heart.  You can know my compassion as you receive my comfort; the two are closely linked: Inward comfort releases outward compassion, equaling ravishing beauty.

Finally, it is my goal for you to be Blameless, to free you of guilt. When you receive the gift of blamelessness – it frees you from striving to make things right, trying to be better than you really are – frees you from saturating yourself in feelings of failure.

There is no machine to carry your burden.  That’s my job, my work, and my ministry.  Now it’s your job to face the real enemies.

photography: Urban Bay

Encouragement for Writers

Many years ago, Madeleine L’Enlge wrote, “We’re never sure that what we write is true and honest.  We try to make it true and honest.  How much I succeed is really beyond my control.  It happens if I am given the Spirit to write the work.”

Her words are truer today than ever before.  If we have something to say – through a blog, a poem, a story, a song, an article, a stage, a sermon – we often wonder if what we say is true.

But the world has never been more complex than it is today and simply “telling it like it is” doesn’t help us much if we don’t take the time to observe the changes in our culture, in ourselves, in our small and big worlds:  It’s really a New Day.

If you’re like me, you take some time most days to sit alone crafting a message through writing or speaking or singing.  I’m 45 years old and I’m still in wonder how it is only through the gifts of the Spirit that my art comes – that love spills into my work. The problem is I’m human and I still doubt, I’m unconvinced that I served my message long enough or intensely enough.  I’m never quite satisfied – but that’s pride – that’s not love and suddenly it’s not about my audience anymore.

My session on Saturday is all about truth-telling as a writer/speaker/communicator in a culture where there’s a divide between the generations spiritually, theologically and geographically.  This is not about being “right” or being at the center of attention with your “truth.”  It’s about writing or speaking something of value to  others and finding your most powerful tools to get that message across to others who are waiting for it.

I’m not an ordained minister and I don’t see myself as having all the answers.  But I do see myself as the lead learner on this subject as I’ve been researching and interviewing for my next book.  We all want truth.  Your audience is looking for the truth that Jesus promises will set us free.

Here are a few of the truth-telling tools I will talk about on Saturday:

·      Live in Real Time; not with Nostalgia

·      Test Words for Balance and Diversity

·      Write with Open Accountability, Not with an Image

What are some obstacles you see in our culture that keep us from telling the Truth well? I hope to meet you there and continue this conversation.  

Vulnerable: Guest Blogger

Dear Friends, I've invited a woman from the younger generation to write to you today so we can catch a glimpse of her relationship with God, herself and the world.  I'm sure some of you can relate to her inner life and journey. Spiritual growth is like a good run in Oregon's wine country: when we first start out we can barely catch our breath but the longer we go at it, the more freedom God gives.  How would you encourage this precious one on her spiritual run?

I don’t really know how to write this journal entry other than just being completely honest and vulnerable with you and myself. I am a people pleaser, perfectionist, and one who likes to take and have control. I didn’t think turning 25 would be so pivotal in discovering who I am. I already thought I knew who I was. Maybe it’s that I’m finally realizing that I’m not perfect and that’s OK.  I don’t know how you will react after reading this post, but all I ask is that you read it with an open heart and know that this has been a long time coming. Ladies, do you know when you run out of foundation, it’s not just your foundation that needs replacing. For me, it’s my foundation, powder, face wash, moisturizer, shampoo and conditioner that seem to run out all at the same time. This is a perfect analogy to my life circumstances.  Everything is happening at once, it’s all running out and I need to be refilled by the only one who can refill me. 

This is a little glimpse of who I was and still am in some ways.  In college, I would never leave my dorm without looking completely put together. My hair, outfit, jewelry and face had to look perfect and if not, I didn’t feel complete. I have always been a person who had to have it all together. I found my self worth in the way I portrayed myself and the friends I had.  Thankfully, now I prefer to live in my Nike spandex and Loft over sized sweater. My hair doesn’t have to be perfect and I don’t need eyeliner.  My friends come in all shapes, sizes, personalities, career paths, and socio- economics. I love each one so dearly and couldn’t be more blessed in my relationships. I am not as concerned of what others think but more importantly I am finally getting comfortable in my own skin.  

My parents adopted me when I was 3 months old from Korea.  I don’t want anything I write to degrade the love and care they have poured upon me. I love them beyond this world.  My parents always said I seemed like an only child with the way I acted and they way they spoiled me. However, I share my parents with 11 other siblings. This is something that I still struggle with even today. I am a selfish person who wants my parents to myself and I know I will never have that. I can relate to a quote my pastor said, ” I am so frustrated with the way I am wired, for it is far from what Christ exhibits. Christ is patience, slow to anger and abounding in love. I have to work extra hard to exhibit these characteristics. It doesn’t come naturally for me.”

 I grew up in a white community. I never really appreciated my ethnicity because I never could relate to anyone in that sense, besides my little sisters.  Just note, that I loved high school! I had a great time and don’t regret a thing. However, I remember feeling different because I wasn’t white, like my friends. I tried to be as white as I could and tried to forget I was Korean.  In high school, I was not unpopular, so maybe I placed more emphasis on the way I looked because I had a status quo to uphold.  I really don’t know. But I remember thinking I wish I was white. I tried to compensate my Asian features with my thin figure. Since middle school, I had a love/hate relationship with food and my body image. I read that if you seek professional help, you have an 80% of being cured and living normally from an eating disorder. This has probably stemmed from multiple things but all I know is that I am tired of it controlling me. By the grace of God, I am seeking professional help and will continue on the path to recovery. 

Recently, I have been experiencing this deep sense of loneliness that I can’t figure out why or how it started. I see my friends in these relationships where they are loved for, cared for, pursued and sought after by a man. I wonder why I can’t have the same thing.  I feel pressured by society to be in relationship with someone. I know in God’s time that perfect man for me will come, but why isn’t it now? I am frustrated with His plan. I am frustrated because I have family members and friends asking me why I am single, like I have something to do with it. They try and give me tips and advice to find someone, like I don’t know already. Satan knows this weakness of mine and relishes at the chance to throw other self-doubting questions my way.  Why was I given up for adoption? Was I not loved?  Why can’t I let guys get close to me? Am I not worthy of a man’s love? 

I am tired of having to hide and pretend I have it all together. I am a girl who just wants to live a life God has intended her to live. I am a girl who is working overtime to learn how to accept God’s plan and allow Him to lead. I am a girl who just needs someone to listen to her heart speak truth and not judge her for when it does.   

 Writing this has helped me acknowledge that I am imperfect and it’s okay.  It’s a place for me to be vulnerable with you and share my feelings, struggles, and victories. I am terrified that by showing my weakness, you will be disappointed in me. I hope that you aren’t and if you are, I am terribly sorry for letting you down. I am just a girl trying to figure out what it means to be true to herself yet true to others. 

“Trust in the Lord always, for the Lord God is the eternal Rock.”- Isaiah 26:4

Open Letter To Christian Women Over 40

Open Letter to Christian Women Over 40

We must build relationships with the next generation.

Dear women of my generation,

How did there come to be such a divide between older and younger women in the church? How is it that today’s generation of Christian women are more likely to list a celebrity like Angelina Jolie as their hero rather than a mentor, leader, or female friend in their own congregation? We, as Christian women over 40, have some work to do.  The work I am referring to is about our call in building a close relationship with our younger sisters in Christ.  We are being called to understand, learn and listen to this next generation and not mis-lead them.  Our authentic response will help more than we realize.

At a recent conference, I sat stone still as Barna CEO David Kinnaman quoted one statistic after another about young people leaving the church and their low knowledge of Scripture. I prepared to hear the proverbial five steps to protect our children, students, and younger co-workers from the evils of today’s Babylon, but Kinnaman said just the opposite.

“Let’s take exiles more seriously. . .we’re more like Mordechai than Esther; the younger generation needs a relationship to trust,” he said, encouraging us to come alongside the young Christians so they can grow. The message to stop avoiding the fact that we live in Babylon was clear.

Honestly, I was relieved. I’d recently interviewed 20 women under 40, asking them about their spiritual lives, their faith, and their relationships with older Christian women. When I asked them to describe their spiritual lives, the majority said they pray constantly and want to be close to God, yet, they feel a distance. Then I asked, “Do you need to be in a relationship with an older Christian woman to grow spiritually?” Hands down, each one said, “Yes!”  I listened with eagerness hoping to hear stories of older Christian women connecting with these young, dynamic women. I was not, however, prepared for what these young, educated and professional Christian women told me: There’s a distance between us and them.

Like many women our age, we’re living with the daily disconnect between the generations’ spiritual lives.  And it’s real. Barna found that two-thirds of evangelical women over 40 describe themselves as deeply spiritual compared to about half of those under 40. 

We, as an older generation, have a depth of faith to offer this younger generation of women, who want to grow spiritually and want relationships with women in the church. It’s complicated, the relationship part.

What I hear the younger generation asking for is us to admit to the suffering in our lives. Are we living transparently about the emotional pain we actually feel?  Even to ourselves? What draws a younger woman closer to us is when she can connect her own doubts and struggles with our honest talk.  Even though Christian women are blogging online with more authenticity, these younger women long for face-to-face contact, or as Kinnaman calls it, “skin time.”

So what would it look like for us as women in the older generations to mentor or disciple a younger woman in the Christian faith?

Listen with Wonder

It helps us to not generalize the younger generation. We live in the same culture, evil as it may be, as the younger women. As we listen to them, it gives us a moment to reflect on how we live out our Christian faith as women living in this culture – the culture Kinnaman calls Babylon – the place where Daniel and Esther were famous and where many Jewish people enjoyed wild success as business owners.  When the younger women listen to us, our transparency ignites a sense of wonder – a sense of astonishment at the lively inner life feelings matching their own.  It’s not a sense of “now I know your weakness,” rather it’s a sense of understanding. 

Create a Safe Place

We can offer our time and create safe place for conversation with younger women. The idea of sharing in a small group is popular in church and Bible studies, but they are not always the best venues. Safe to us is not what is safe to them. It’s not enough to see them in church and ask them how their family is doing. In a church setting, this age group tends to feel ignored. Meeting one-on-one with the intention of transparent talk feels like spiritual life to them, though it can take a lot of time and commitment for that to happen. We need to sacrifice our desire for the younger generation of women to be just like us. They are not like us. Their spiritual lives grow differently. One reason is they are more likely to see themselves as leaders than we do. There’s a confidence about the younger generation of women in which we need preparation.

Live without Misleading

In the Barna survey, there’s an interesting twist. Although 47 percent of young women do not see themselves as deeply spiritual, they still consider themselves leaders. They are more likely than us, their mothers, and their grandmothers to take on these leadership roles.

With great respect and honor for past ministries, what we know as mentoring should be rethought.  If younger women are more likely to serve as leaders, we need to listen to them and not mislead them by the way we are living.  Apparently, they are watching us and waiting for our initiative and pursuit.

Even though this conversation can sound familiar – the younger generation leaving the church, them Loving Jesus but not the Church – the actual skill of mentoring the next generation of Christian women requires practical knowledge

Today in Babylon, you and I are church.  Living a “reverent life”(yes, I am referencing Titus 2:3 here) means we pay attention to the women younger than us in the faith. We boldly invite one or two into our lives to meet twice a month for a little more than an hour, and we ask good questions, reveal our pain, and refuse to shift our eyes when we hear something we cannot relate to… like being a vice president of a company at 24 or having multiple sexual partners because they were lonely. The honest and humbling truth is that as a relationship like this one grows in the protection of a safe place, we, the older generation, will grow exponentially in our faith as they are more likely to teach us about Jesus Christ and His Will for this world than the way we’ve been doing Church in America.

Let’s continue this conversation for the long haul.  I see myself loving the younger women by writing this to you and representing them well.  Join me?

What Am I Listening For?

What Am I Listening For?

Learning to discern what’s best in a situation is difficult in a world dedicated to so many choices.  I remember two years ago when my husband and daughters asked if we could get a second dog.  I didn’t need to even pray about my answer because I knew another dog spelled more work for me.  But when my youngest daughter reasoned with me that having someone with her at night would help her sleep better, I caved in and said, “yes.”  (See photo).  Naturally, the sweet little puppy turned my world upside down and since I work from home, I was constantly taking her out and holding her on my lap.  When someone would walk by outside, the new puppy would begin yipping, inviting our other dog to bark.  I became instantly frustrated.  I resolved to teach this new puppy to see my daughter as her caretaker and not me.  It took a few months for me to keep getting myself out of the way but eventually both daughter and dog successfully attached themselves to one another.  My daughter never felt frustrated the way I did. I consider it a miracle, when I say, “honey, your dog needs to go out,” and I don’t feel the full responsibility.

A few months later, I was in a meeting with a group of 20 something year old women who gathered for spiritual reasons – some were believers already and some were not.  As the “older” women and I interacted with this group, I sensed the Spirit was vying for me to listen, I heard God telling me to stop taking full responsibility for the “spiritual” conversation.  Where had I heard this before?  In my spirit, I heard God saying, “Teach them to take full responsibility of this new gift but stay out of the way – they are not like you.”    What was happening was God wanted me to obey His voice and not just do what I saw as the “right thing.”  God gave me a place in the Spirit where my only responsibility was to be a channel so others could do the owning.

When I respond to God’s voice, “to obey is better than sacrifice. (I Samuel 15:22), am I confident I’m not motivated by my own preferences?  The human heart is fragile and can be easily swayed by what thousands of other people are doing, or easily rebellious by wanting to do its own thing.  Except for those who hear that Still, Small voice tenderly speaking to us, people do not seek a Word from the Lord; they want to find a word that coincides with what they long to hear.

If my own preferences are my reason for listening to God’s voice, it will not be long before my “self” motives change to judging, criticism, isolation, and fear.  My desires to hear from God may be strong and even passionate, but they are not Gospel centered.  The world’s voices and the enemy’s voice are far too strong to combat my own voice.  I need more than passionate desire to push back those voices.  I need the indescribable and invincible power of God.

Jesus Christ was motivated by two things:  doing the will of His Father and redemptive love, which called for His need to hear God’s voice while on this earth.  Unless similar motivations pulse through me, I will rely on my own resources.  But if I listen and obey God’s Word to me in a given situation, I place myself at the mercy of His resources.  How can I tell if I am hearing God’s voice or not?  By time.  Once that Word from God is completed, He moves us on to the next lesson.

Our goal is to cooperate with the Holy Spirit and to “lift our eyes to the hills asking, “where does my help come from?” (Psalm 121:1).  God’s goal is to be our Helper in the word He has given us.  The result will be many people being blessed through our obedience.

What do you think?  What challenges do you experience when handling spiritual conversations with women younger or older than you?

One young woman asked me recently at a conference, “How do you know when you hear God’s voice?”  I’d love to hear how readers would respond to this.

See Dr. Jean Twenge's work on the younger generations: http://www.generationme.org/index.html